EDUCATIONAL INCUBATION & HATCHING CHAT THREAD, w/ Sally Sunshine Shipped Eggs

[BullChick]

has anyone here watch/watched Sabrina the teenage witch? it is my new favorite t.v. series!

Mayyyybe.

Many moons ago, but I've watched them all.

I thought I had. Now I realize I haven't. Don't want to see the finale though. It will kill me in my current situation.

 

[Chaos18]

Morning peoples............and those who aren't peoples.

 

[ocap]

My last broody got 70% but some get zero usually due to stopping. so factoring in the failure I could see where the average is lower

I had a silkie, who did well most months, had zero hatch when the temperatures reached -10F one night. I agree, she had a low average

Good Morning, pass the coffee, please, thank you

 

[lovechicks1293]

mooooornin'

 

[ChickenCanoe]

toay is lockdown yay.but some of the air cells are smaller than the others and I'm worried.

Too late to make changes now. Just raise the humidity and sit on your hands till they hatch.

Poultry Breeding Philosophy

2015 was a challenging one for the poultry industry and many backyard raisers as they coped with the damage from Avian Flu on industry and the backyard flocks. We feel this is a good time to explain our breeding philosophy to make sure each of our potential and returning customers understands our goals, philosophy, and mission. It is not our intent to criticize or challenge any particular group for their practices; we simply want to explain our driving forces (reasons) behind our passion.
We respect the large scale operations for their purpose though we feel there are more sustainable options. We appreciate their ability to produce large amounts of food at low costs regardless of season. We also respect the strict poultry fancier whose main goal is to create a show winner. We also understand the large scale hatchery which chooses to offer breeds with a steady chick supply. We are unique in what we are doing and do not fit into any of these categories. We want you to understand this prior to ordering. The following are the guidelines we use to maintain our flocks and breeding programs:
1. All breeds within the APA Standard are selected to those standards. We do, however, not discard a bird from our breeding program for minor flaws, such as an extra point on a comb or a slightly off color eye, if the bird has other desirable traits. Our goal is to maintain genetic diversity and all defining characteristics.
2. We do not replace all of our breeders every year. We prefer to check the longevity and long productivity of a breed. We feel this is important to see how sustainable a breed is. Our goal is to produce long lived, productive birds.
3. We do not have climate controlled pens and, therefore, our birds are subjected to the true rigors of the environment. They are provided dry, fresh bedding and, of course, are always provided with fresh water and food. We firmly believe it is important that survival of a breed is based on how it can handle the real world. Our goal is to produce birds that can withstand many different environments.
We believe our birds are healthier when they are subjected to real world conditions and not isolated from the outside environment. Therefore, our birds are exposed to the outside world, soil, fresh grass, rain, sunshine, and all that is out there. Our goal is to produce birds that will thrive for many generations to come.
4. We do not vaccinate day-old poultry. We do not have Mareks problem here and do not wish to bring the vaccine on the farm. Our goal is to produce birds that can withstand common environmental stresses.
We do annual tests on the breeders for Pullorum-typhoid and Avian Influenza. Our goal is to send you the healthiest birds we can.
5. Our replacement breeders, during their youth, get to run free range in a large orchard and are gathered and selected as Winter nears for the desired traits for their particular breed. We do not believe it is proper to raise them in a "plastic bubble" where they do not have access to fresh grass, insects, and contact with the outside world. The Avian Flu outbreak kept seeing more and more information that it is unsafe to raise your birds in contact with nature. I do not think it is realistic or proper to insulate poultry from the world. We cannot kill every wild bird to protect our poultry, nor should we. We instead should select our breeders from the survivors of exposure to the outside world. Our goal is to let nature run its course and only use birds of superior genetics as our broad stock.
6. We always select to maintain the unique traits for the breeds such as broodiness, foraging ability, etc. We feel color patterns are not the only thing, a breed has many things to consider when selecting the ideal specimen. Our goal is to continue the genetic diversity that was established many generations ago.
7. Many of the birds obtained from us can go on to win at shows and many will become excellent layers or producers of meat. However, we do not guarantee show quality as even the best parents can produce offspring with disqualifications. Our goal is that you would purchase enough birds to cull out the less desirable individuals.
8. We do not sell sexed chicks because we believe, to promote genetic conservation, we want to encourage others to adopt a breed, if possible, and you need both genders. It is also not fair to sex out extra females and leave another person with more males or be forced to "dispose of" the unwanted males. Our goal is that YOU would start to raise one of these wonderful breeds.
9. We do not sell hatching eggs as our experience, both sending and receiving, has not been favorable enough to warrant the loss of genetic material through damaged eggs. Our goal is that you would be pleased with your purchase.
10. We do not allow visitors to the farm, both to comply with NPIP regulations and to prevent biosecurity issues. Our goal is to keep our birds safe from outside diseases that could close our facility.
I read a article on marek's some time ago, on how vaccinating is making for super marek's, endangering poultry in reality. I will never buy vaccinated birds again. As of now the only chickens I've had get sick were a couple vaccinated one's.
I really like Sand Hill Preservation Center's philosophy;

I too like Sandhill's philosophy. I've gotten about 20 different breeds from them.
As far as the birds go, most were good quality.
I think he does a little too much experimentation crossing up breeds.

tell me, what exactly is mareks?

A herpes virus that has cost the poultry industry 10s of millions of dollars.

http://www.thepoultrysite.com/diseaseinfo/90/mareks-disease/

I'm lost with everybody posting about the humidity and stuff. I'm confused

Don't be lost. Raise the humidity a bit and leave the eggs alone till after they all hatch.

I wish. My poor chickens out there need it to cool off.

80% humidity and 95. Poor guys.

They do okay with the heat when it's dry.... but this humidity makes them suffer.

High humidity year round here. Unseasonably warm now. It was still 80 F at 10 PM last night. Only got down to 73 overnight. We're going to set a new record high today. 88 is the old record, 91 is forecast.

That brings about another question: Why raise the humidity at all? Mama hen can't turn a dial to raise the humidity on day 18. The humidity's going to go up naturally, under a hen or in an incubator, once chicks start hatching, so what's the rational? I've done it with my few hatches, only because I'm told that's normal procedure, but I dun't know why.

I do it because with the high temperature, it tends to dry out the internal membrane very quickly.
Not sure how a hen combats that but she doesn't seem to have problems with losing enough egg moisture nor with dry membranes.

Hi all you highly skilled hatchers! I would love it if any of you would be willing to check out my eggtopsy pictures on my "all my chicks died" thread. I have looked over the eggtopsy thread and still can not figure out what happened, I would love some help.

The only thing an eggtopsy will tell you is at what point of incubation they quit.
Then you can use the following as a guide to determine things that can cause them to quit at that point.
http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00008570/00001/1j

What temp for lockdown

No need to change since a hen's body temperature is the same after day 18 as it is before.
However, since an embryo is generating some heat of its own, you can let it ease down to 99.

I take it you used the styro bator lol

and yes I gotcha on the vaccines, I have had a bottle of mareks unopened in the fridge for over two years and my gut says dont do it, so there it sits.


...

Yes I did. The longer I ran it continuously this summer, the more stable it got, That was after a few months of it being all over the place. I've shut it down, hopefully forever. I won't be hatching again till likely December or later.

CH if you say the air cells are small wait to up humidity till internals

@lindalouly

Will he be able to decipher what to make of that?

No way to catch up.
I hope you all had a great weekend. I had a great two days of trail riding in the MO Ozarks

Today we went to the natural bridge. It has collapsed a lot in the last few years so you can't walk easily through it, but it is still cool.

Awesome trip. The Ozarks have so many great geologic formations, amazing array of caves and springs.

We went to the harvest festival at Laumeier Sculpture park. Not like natural bridges but the food was great.
Barbecue brisket, pulled pork and burnt ends. The blackberry/ancho chili barbecue sauce was a hit.

Now I understand. I wish I could reach 40%, ain't happened yet

My last hatch was 11 of 12 which is 92%. I attribute that to several things. Most of all is that the incubator had finally settled down and I was able to keep it at about 99.5 most of the duration.
The hen had taken the summer off from laying so her body stores of nutrients were high.
If I had not hatched the oldest eggs which were at least 2 weeks old, it would have been 100% and even the oldest egg almost made it to term.

 

[ocap]

Trash day, back in about 20

 

[campingshaws]

 

[BantyChooks]

 

[Chaos18]

Morning Mrs. Shaw.

 

[Pensmaster]

Guy's coming tomorrow afternoon to see about doing the shed roof.
I've been trying to work out a pattern for the T1-11 above the end walls up to the peak. Had to sacrifice a quantity of thin plywood for the rigidity over 6' (got to split it into 2 pieces so the ribs will run vertical, like the walls). After starting over 3-4 times on the back of a sheet of siding, 'cause I kept screwing up, I had to break out the felt-tip pen so I could distinguish what I hope are the final lines; I'll find out tomorrow. With any luck I can just flip the pattern over to do the other 6'. It'd be handy to be an engineer about now.

The gables are the hardest part to match up. Do you have the z-bar flashing to go between the horizontal joints?